by: Aniruddh Nambudiri

On August 24th, 2025, Nigel McGuinness got to wrestle Zack Sabre Jr. This was a dream match that has technically already happened but that was when one was on his retirement tour and the other was still a prospect. It is 2025, and now one is arguably the best technical wrestler in the world, if not all time, and Nigel is now firmly back on a part time basis after he realized his body held up after 11 years on the shelf. This was a dream match for British wrestling and it delivered. What is incredible is that Nigel should not have been there. All conventional wisdom says Nigel was supposed to wind down and by 50, be retired after a long and successful career. Nigel is not conventional though; his whole life has not gone the way anyone thought or even how it should have gone. He was robbed of his career in his prime, by both injuries and violent politics played against him by management. He is one of my favorites of all time and I want to write about him. Maybe you can see why every time I hear an Oasis song, a part of me gets teleported to thousand person venues in the mid to late 2000s and I get to experience one of the all-time greats tear the house down. Something I have never seen and sadly might never get to see before he retires, this time on his own terms. 

The kid who grew up in London and managed to get a ticket for Summerslam 1992. The kid who decided from that moment he was going to do anything he could to be a wrestler. His chemistry degree allowed him to get one year of work study in the US, where he would go into extensive debt to pursue his dream and train under Les Thatcher in Cincinnati. He would return to England to learn under Robbie Brookside and worked two jobs to get closer to his dreams. That is Nigel McGuinness to me. The determination and passion that would ooze out of him any time you saw him. He might look cocky on his way to the ring and when he is the bad guy, but there is a deeply seeded passion you can see whenever you look at him. 

Though there is some fun there with McGuinness and Jon Moxley, Nigel really came into his own when he stepped into Ring of Honor. He had a punk presence in a promotion that already was the alternative programming of its industry. When WWE was moving towards toilet humor and eras of domination of white meat babyfaces in the face of all criticism, ROH represented the place where what mattered was if you could go and if the fans cared about you. With the iron being carried to the ring, the spiked-up hair, the sunglasses and Fuckin’ in the Bushes by Oasis playing him to the ring, it all screamed of a star. Then you get to the ring and that is when jaws drop the floor. 

Some context before I rave about him, British wrestlers have consistently had the reputation of being amongst the best technically in the world. Yes, even in a simulated or pre planned setting, there is a massive space for the technical side of the sport. It is an art form of itself. The way holds and pinning combinations come together all goes back to the historical involvement of catch style and shoot style wrestlers in pro wrestling. The British wrestlers all go back to people like Billy Robinson. It then travels to Johnny Saint and Marty Jones and the core that built up the wrestling hour on World of Sport, a mainstay of 70s television in the UK. It then goes to more known names like Dave Finlay and even William Regal who trained under Marty Jones. That history now lay in the hands of Doug Williams and Nigel. The throne both took over enthusiastically. He added a hard-hitting style unlike his predecessors. He was known for hard hitting strikes, particularly lariats and upper cuts, along with the precision to turn matches into chess. There is also a way of thinking about technical wrestling. Nigel McGuinness was a chess player when it came to wrestling, someone who was completely coordinated and coming into matches with a plan and counter for major parts of his opponent’s offense. This was a point that has been stated further later on, but we will get there in due time. 

He would have a great friendship turned rivalry with Colt Cabana. It would be accompanied with his battles with Samoa Joe where he would win the ROH Pure Championship, a championship that will always be synonymous with him. He defended the belt 17 times and until the current reign of Lee Moriarty, had the longest reign with the belt. Nigel was a powerhouse with the belt. Someone who was not afraid to bend the different rules that a Pure match had to others on the card. Another thing that adds to the chess player mindset of Nigel, a meticulous plan to make sure he comes out on top. His matches with people like Roderick Strong and especially Claudio Castagnoli are standouts. However, whenever you talk about Nigel in ROH, these are not the matches we talk about. 

29th April 2006. Weekend of Champions. Pure Champion McGuinness faces the World Champion Bryan Danielson, easily one of the best wrestlers of all time. A man who had his own anthem to play him to the ring in ‘The Final Countdown’. The star of the company whereas Nigel represented someone who was great but seen below Danielson. Nigel wins by countout, retaining his belt without winning Bryan’s due to the nature of the Pure rules they fought under. Danielson then beats him at Generation Now in a normal match but cannot win the Pure title under those rules. It is decided then, they need to unify the belts. An event of this magnitude warrants being the main event of Ring of Honor’s first show outside of the US. 

ROH Unified is where this goes. 12th August 2006, the date where around 1700 people in Liverpool saw history. The place where Liverpool got to see the greatest match in one of the greatest rivalries in wrestling history. The setting for what is easily one of the greatest matches of all time. This is not an article of me recapping their rivalry, for there is a lot of great media out there that does just that. It would be impossible to tell Nigel’s story without talking about these matches though. Particularly this one. That image of the blood running down his face as he fires up and launches a flurry of headbutts, a move that has shortened several prominent wrestling careers, including Danielson himself. It is hard to watch, but no one in Liverpool knows that yet. What they know is they want their country’s own to win in the face of it all. He gives his all, and yet he passes out and loses his precious title, which retires the title in the process for 14 years. 

The future matches are all classics and go down as pieces for the greatest rivalry that independent wrestling has seen, surrounded by battles with people like Austin Aries, Takeshi Morishima, Chris Hero, Go Shiozaki and especially Jimmy Rave. These battles all showed Nigel was incredible, but without underhanded tactics, he could not get the big one over Danielson. This feeling is another thing that shines when you watch Nigel. The desperation and it all being for nought as he just cannot get the big one on his biggest rival. He seemingly did in 2007 before it was said the match was not sanctioned. He beats him at ROH’s sixth anniversary with those underhanded tactics again. Then finally in 2008, at as big of a stage as possible, Nigel finally gets a definitive win over Nigel, albeit still filled with interference that paid off the year of storytelling that kept them both apart. Both were destined to leave and yet what should have been Nigel’s farewell also became Danielson’s. Both seemingly finding their ways to WWE after years of incredible work. Until Nigel lost his call. 

It just seems like nothing went how it should have for him. Whilst he was Danielson’s biggest rival, Danielson went on to stardom (mind you as one of the first wrestlers I ever loved) in WWE after fans practically begged WWE to push him. This all happened when Nigel went to TNA, another major company, and lost his spot. They shaved his hair, changed his name and after an incredible opening feud at the top of the card, he had his rug pulled. Management (mainly Hulk Hogan) did not see the appeal of him, despite being exceptional in the ring and on the mic. Then the Hepatitis B diagnosis came and all the concussions of years of headbutts caught up to him. He chose to retire in 2011 when he still could. 

Nigel retiring moved him to the commentary desk where he obviously became one of the best there as well. It made people sad though. Nigel was obviously good enough, an all timer cut down in his prime. A British great who just did not have enough to go anymore and he was clearly broken by it. He made his own documentary and there are videos of him speaking in his car that are too much for me to watch. They are videos of a man who is distraught by the cards he has been dealt whilst having to see his peers excel and reach new heights. Danielson became world champion and Nigel became a footnote, one that WWE would not even mention until Nigel signed with them as a commentator and they realized they can turn a profit with the story. This after years of not even acknowledging Danielson’s past, or when doing so, dismissing it as a lower level. 

I got introduced to him as a commentator with no knowledge of his previous career. It was only when I did the deep dive into Danielson where I found him. He was a footnote even to me initially. Then I saw him, and I related to so much of it. The struggle, the passion, the desire to prove how good you are and ultimately coming up short in the end. The sadness after you realize that things are really bad and you do not deserve your situation and you cannot control that. Then finally, the fight to come back and still be the same Nigel. 

All In 2024 at Wembley is one of the greatest live events I have seen on TV. Of course, even in this event, Bryan Danielson was the main event in a match where he put his career on the line to try and win the AEW World Title for the first time. He would do so in an incredible match against Swerve Strickland, a star for the current era. That was not the biggest surprise of the night though.

Earlier in the night, in a match where the participants were not announced, a match where the winner got a shot at the World Title, the unthinkable happened. After 12 years on the sidelines, Oasis played in Wembley again and out walked Nigel. The place where he got hooked onto wrestling, he came back. He looked incredible, he missed a few beats like anyone would after 12 years away, but it did not matter. It was Nigel McGuinness in a wrestling ring in the 2020s. He just looked happy and reinvigorated. It made everyone in that stadium happy. What else matters. It does not matter that he was forced into an early retirement, because now that means nothing. 

Naturally, this meant one more match with Danielson, to accompany his retirement tour that year where once again, Danielson proved the extra years in wrestling just meant he had a step over Nigel. We move to 2025 and now in this era, that shine is still there on the rare occasion we see him in the ring. Again, this man is nearly 50. No one was expecting a full-time return. We just expected the right matches to come his way. Then came the win in a match to set up what happened on the 24th of August. The perfect match for him. 

McGuinness against the man who took on his mantle of the king of British technical wrestling. One who saw the sport as chess, the other who saw it as a freeform bebop jazz performance. One where the basic hold sets up a key and the variations and the manipulations set up solos and pieces to pile upon each other. McGuinness truly does give it all and he comes up short against a man who is currently in the upper echelon of wrestlers in the world but for some moments, you see the man look 20 years younger than he is. A handshake at the end, a torch passing that was not needed to crown Zack, but one to hold as the pinnacle of British wrestling. 

Nigel is one of my all-time favorites. On top of being incredibly funny on the mic, his story both inside and outside the ring appeals to me. He came back and he looks like a Nigel that had those extra 12 years of ring wear on him. A nearly 50-year-old Nigel who could still move incredibly well and have a match that tears the house down. To paraphrase one of the most popular gaming quotes of all time, despite everything, he is still Nigel. He is still the cocky and quick-witted man on the mic, the suave and cool face in the room and after 12 years, the final form of the technical wizard that carried a country’s signature style as well as anyone has through all the bumps in the road.